Quarterly Cartel Catch-Up: Year-End Edition 2022

In 2022, antitrust authorities around the world were pursuing more investigations, bringing new types of cases, and making policy changes to spark even more enforcement actions.

In the United States, the Department of Justice's Antitrust Division (Division) continued to pursue wage-fixing and no-poach agreements in labor markets and is scheduled to take at least two more cases to trial in 2023. The Division-led Procurement Collusion Strike Force (PCSF) brought nearly a dozen cases, and it appears that many more could be on the horizon as the PCSF adds new agency partners and polices the recent substantial increase in government spending. The Division also filed the first criminal monopolization charges in more than four decades and then quickly followed with a second case that included a criminal monopolization charge along with money laundering charges.